January 31, 2003 - Chico, California

We had a long bus ride to Chico from the bottom of California to the top. The ride took more than 10 hours. When I woke up it was about 9:30 AM so I just went to the front of the bus to enjoy some of the California view. It was very foggy and it seemed like we were riding through miles and miles of what I later found out to be olive trees.

When we got to Chico, I had just enough time to shower before load in. Load in and set up went very fast because we had a lot of help from the students at the school. Before sound check, Joseph & I got a chance to jam a little bit together on stage. Victor had to make a run so I filled in for him playing bass during sound check. After sound check we ordered food. The hospitality was great at the California State University of Chico. They had plenty of food and stuff like that available to us.

Later Victor & I took a long walk in downtown Chico. When we got back it was almost show time. It was a great show, but we did experience a couple of technical difficulties and there was a power outage on the bass rig. That's probably the 3rd or 4th time we've had a power outage on the bass rig. We have two 1500 watt power amps for the bass rig and Victor has 8 basses running through them. Sometimes there are as many as 3 basses at a time going through them. I just made peace with the fact that we're going to blow a circuit from time to time.

After the gig we did the usual…signing autographs while we're tearing down gear. Ken Bebensee, the guy who built my 6 string fretless, came to the show. I've got a link to his web site on my "Ant's Links" page if you wanna' check him out. He lives about an hour and a half south of here. It was good to see him AND he brought some basses for me to look at. He told me he just delivered a bass to one of my students, Von Brown, last week. It was a 5 string fretless, but very similar to mine.

Load out went pretty fast. Right now it is 12:12 in the morning (Pacific Time) and we're sitting in front of the hotel. That's a VERY early night for us. Now we have a 12 hour ride to Salt Lake City, Utah. That's a LONG time to be on the tour bus. But I have the perfect solution to that problem. While Victor & I were out earlier, I found some old Richard Prior recordings that were remastered on CD. That ought to make for a very interesting bus ride.

I'll holla' at you tomorrow from the Great Salt Lake….

peace,

anthony